Germany’s highest share of single-person households in Regensburg

The FINANCIAL -- A new GfK study reveals the regional distribution of Germany’s demographic traits, such as family type, age ranges and income levels.

The nation’s highest share of single-person households is in the urban district of Regensburg, while the highest share of households with children is in the rural district of Cloppenburg.

Germany’s share of single-person households is just under 38 percent. The nationwide share of multiple-person households with children is 32.1 percent. This percentage again surpasses that of multiple-person households without children, which comes in at 30.1 percent.

With a 56.4 percent share of single-person households, Regensburg urban district significantly outpaces Germany's other districts in this category. This percentage equates to 1.5 times the national average. At 53.5 percent, the urban district of Würzburg comes in at second place, followed by the urban districts of Leipzig (52.6 percent), Passau (52.3 percent) and Flensburg (51.8 percent). With a 49 percent share of single-person households, Germany’s capital Berlin holds the twentieth spot in the current study, coming in behind other large cities such as Munich (50.1 percent) and Cologne (49.6 percent).

The share of households with children is often especially high in rural regions. At 49.6 percent, the rural district of Cloppenburg has the highest share, followed by the rural districts of Vechta and Eichstätt. Of the ten districts with the highest share of this household type, six are in Bavaria, three in Lower Saxony and one in Baden-Württemberg. At the other end of the spectrum is the urban district of Würzburg: Its high share of single-person households correlates with its low share of multiple-person households with children (17.9 percent).

With 2.12 people per household, the highest average household size in the nation is in Baden-Württemberg, closely followed by Rhineland-Palatinate at 2.11 people per household. With just 1.75 people per household, Berlin has the smallest average household size among Germany’s federal states. The national average is 2.02 people per household.